


And The Wisdom To Know

by poisontaster



Series: No Office Romance [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Blow Jobs, Episode Related, Frottage, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-04
Updated: 2009-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:20:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after 5.09, "100".  Spencer wants to help, in any way he can.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And The Wisdom To Know

**Author's Note:**

> _God grant me the serenity_  
>  _To accept the things I cannot change;_  
>  _Courage to change the things I can;_  
>  _And the wisdom to know the difference._  
>  \--Reinhold Niebuhr  
> 

Spencer wanted to go to him. To just…just _touch_ him; a comradely, manly, typical, emotionally constipated clap to the shoulder, a squeeze, a hug. Something. _Something_ to let Aaron know how sorry he was, how it wasn't his fault, how he wasn't alone, that Spencer was right there…

_(I'm right here)_

But even if Aaron would let him do that—and Spencer knows full well that Aaron never would—the _rules_ say that he can't. The rules. The goddamn fucking _rules_ that they set up way back when, when they were…

What were they?

A thing? A fling? A 'booty call'? Avoiding labels had been as much a part of what they were as the sex, the secrecy and the rules. Whatever they were, it was past tense, in the past, over and done a long time ago.

Except the past was again present and despite the _wild_ inappropriateness of all these feelings coming back to him now, they were here, hot as the blood running through his veins. And he was helpless to do anything about it.

Worse than that, the history between them made it impossible for him to offer even the kindness of friendship, impossible that simple human gesture wouldn't be misinterpreted as something more, something that would destroy the soap bubble of warm feeling that still remains, cherished and hidden.

It scared him sometimes, how much Spencer needed that little kernel of something, those last sweet crumbs of whatever they'd been and whatever was between them now. But he recognized that he did need it, an addiction fully worse than any chemical, and his cowardice at the thought of losing it outweighed even the desperation to try and reach Aaron through his wounds and grief.

Instead, he didn't sleep, tossing and turning across suddenly abrasive sheets and replaying in excruciating and hurtful detail the blistered look that Aaron had given him after getting out of his debrief with Erin Strauss and the oversight committee. The one that had stripped him bare in seconds, exposing every desperate, silly, heated thought or feeling he'd ever had for Special Agent Aaron Hotchner. It had lasted, at most, a second or two shifting as smoothly toward Jack—Aaron's family—as it ever had when they were together.

And yet it replayed, nonstop, looping, surround-sound vid, tangling vine-like around his worry, his guilt. The shrill of his cell phone was almost a relief—almost—even through the icy cascade that a new case had already tumbled onto their doorstep, too soon and unwanted. He scraped the not-sleep from his eyes and clicked the line open: "It's Reid."

"I'm downstairs."

And strangely, the new case panic was not nearly as terrifying as Aaron's voice on the other end of the line, saying those two words. Strangely. So strangely.

 _He'll come up and we'll talk,_ Spencer thought. _That's it; he's here to talk. Maybe we'll drink._ He tried to remember if the bottle of Scotch he bought eons ago (for Aaron) was still in the kitchen cabinet above the sink or whether they'd have to hit his meager stash of Yuengling. _He'll get drunk and we'll talk and he'll be too drunk to go and I'll put him to bed on my couch. That's all it is. That's all._

But his stomach was in knots and in a brief moment of clarity, he felt the cold fizzing bubbles of hopefulness that underlie all that hamster-wheel busyness. He was hopeful. He hoped. He managed to cut that thought off there, clearing his throat and saying, "Um. Yeah. Come on up."

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the doorbell buzzed, sudden harsh noise that made him jump. He actually wasn't expecting that, even though he should've. But he wasn't and so he had to fling and untangle himself from the sheets, scrambling out of bed—and forgetting his cane, which sent rusty spikes of pain shooting up the damaged muscle—to stumble-crash down the hall to slap the button and let Aaron in.

He goes back for the cane but the delay means he has no time for more than that—no time to put on more than the low-slung cotton sleep pants he'd gone to bed in—a nicety he didn't think of until he was opening the door and Aaron was there, eyes raking down Spencer's naked torso.

Spencer's blush was a ready thing at the best of times. By the time Aaron's gaze reached Spencer's, it scalded up from his groin, splotching his chest and neck…and then Aaron's eyes dissected and laid him bare all over again. "I…" Spencer's mouth tangled over his discombobulated thoughts. _I'm not trying to seduce you,_ seemed particularly dumb under the circumstances and yet he couldn't sponge it from the tip of his tongue.

"You weren't sleeping," Aaron said, somewhere between statement and question. He kicked the door shut behind him without violence, the latch kicking over with metallic finality.

"No." Spencer shook his head, rubbing flat the goose bumps on one stippled arm with the hand of the other. He didn't know what to do with his body, how much proximity to give. "Where's Jack?"

It was the wrong question to ask; Spencer saw it in the way the harsh, new-etched lines around Aaron's eyes carved even deeper. "Safe."

"Ah." So that's how it was going to be. Spencer rocked on his heels and looked down, at a loss for what else to say. All his good intentions to find a way to ease Aaron's pain, his burden, gave no clue as to how he should actually _do_ that, his supposedly brilliant brain a waste when it came to the small, precious details of interpersonal relationships. And Aaron wasn't giving him any cues to pick up on, the two of them standing awkwardly silent in the vestibule.

"Is this all right?" Aaron asked suddenly, roughly.

That jerked Spencer's head up on his neck. "Yeah, of cour…" He didn't get any further than that before both Aaron's hands latched onto his shoulders, pushing him back into the wall, only a second ahead of Aaron's mouth crashing into Spencer's. Aaron bore him back into the wall, cane falling out of Spencer's nerveless fingers with a clatter, but the noise he made was less pain than surprise and a sudden volcanic burst of desire.

Spencer's slight frame meant a lot of the men he'd been with have wanted to manhandle him—women too, for that matter—and he'd never liked it, never let anyone get away with it.

Except Aaron.

The fact that these were the hands that so recently smashed in Foyet's head wasn't lost on Spencer. Just the opposite, the zing-thrill of 'danger' nearly the best part. Nearly, because it had been years since he'd last had Aaron's hands on him in anything but the most casual of contact and he was hungry—was _starving_ for it; just this had Spencer hard and raging, all his self-lies about how much he was 'over it' revealed for the bullshit it was.

Aaron's hips bucked hard, a full-body grind that told Spencer that Aaron's indifference was as faked as Spencer's own. Spencer didn't think it was physiologically possible to be this hard, this close to ejaculation, this fast. One of Aaron's hands rooted into Spencer's hair, locked in the strands, _pulls_. Another Aaron-only; Spencer moaned into the kiss, both his hands fisted in Aaron's suit jacket.

Aaron rutted against him again, again, again devouring Spencer's mouth, bright pain as he bit down. Was this violence masquerading as sex or sex masquerading as violence? Spencer didn't know. This was the edge their not-relationship had always existed on or maybe just the creator of it—everything Aaron hadn't been able to take home to Haley and Jack. And Spencer had been glad for it.

He was still glad for it.

Aaron slammed into him one more time and that was it; Spencer cried out, spasms racking through him and spilling out through his cock. Aaron's mouth ripped away from his, harsh pants in Spencer's ear, searing heat along his jawline as Aaron held him there, pinned him through it.

"Wait," Spencer said, his voice weak and gluey, hard to untangle from his throat. He lifted his face up toward the ceiling, gulping for air, still hanging onto Aaron's lapels. "Wait…"

Aaron tried to prevent it, when Spencer slid out from underneath him, turning Aaron back against the wall instead, but Aaron's resistance was half-hearted, contradicted by the erection still distorting the line of his suit.

Getting to his knees is more difficult than he thought it would be; Aaron tried once more to stop him but, given this might be his only chance to have this again, Spencer wasn't about to be dissuaded. He shrugged Aaron off, ignored both the pain in his leg and the seductive thought of how to ease that pain. (One day at a time)

He opened Aaron's belt, peeled his slacks, his shorts, down his thighs. Spencer's mouth was already wet and hot by the time he spread his thumbs across the soft, untouched skin of Aaron's hips. Spencer dug his nails in a little and felt Aaron shiver.

Spencer looked up, up the length of Aaron's body as he took him in, long, hard girth stretching his lips, weighting his tongue. The impulse was to close his eyes, allow himself to focus, allow himself to immerse in this, but once he looked Aaron in the eyes, there was no question of being able to look away.

It didn't take long for Aaron to come, a quiet noise—a quiet _name_ —and bitter scalds on Spencer's tongue that he swallowed greedily, lapping for everything Aaron was willing to give.

This he could do.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So, in my head, I have this long, involved story about Reid and Hotchner and the scorching hot affair they were having in S1 and part of S2. It's a story I've never had the time or patience to write out and, honestly, as most of it was conceived while watching the show itself, I'm not sure how I would tell it without extensive visual aids and vid clips. Or something. So it languishes in my head and periodically, something happens on the show that makes me go, "Oh! My OTP! *sigh*" and that's been about the extent of it. 
> 
> And then I watched 100. And this is where my slash goggles apparently come into play because the way that Reid, in particular, kept looking at Hotch—in this "I want to go to you, I want to touch you, but I CAN'T" kind of way… And then at the end, when Reid is the first to know Hotch is coming (though his back is to the door) and he turns around and there's this very brief look between them and I honestly don't know what Matthew Gray-Gubler thought he was emoting there, but to me it was such a fraught look that…well, this was born. 
> 
> It started as a series of text messages to wrenlet who indulges my OTPish insanity about these two; I just wanted to ramble about that look. But it quickly turned into this and, all things being equal, I'm humbly and intensely grateful it did, because writing is my solace and refuge and ever has been. 
> 
> As stories go, I think this is indulgent and probably as sappy as I ever get; I don't know that it's really in character or in voice…but it made me happy to write it and that's all I really needed. Yay.


End file.
